Logic board replacement (mini)

I understand your problem - but that won't work

maybe your 5g isn't completely dead and you should find someone who is able to fix it.

a common problem are 2 shot capacitors on the logicboard (c145 & c146). you can see them in step 8 of the logic board guide. the two orange parts are sometimes defective/shot/burned. they are 220µF capacitors and if they are "bad" they could look like this: but wait - you wrote that it won't work in a docking station either, thic could be a problem with the P5021C-TDF - it's also on the left side, look at step 10 - it's right from the capacitors i mentioned.

the solderings of this chip failed on many 5g iPod's in less than a year - if you want to read more about it: CLICK here

as for the mac formatting problem - you can use transmac to deal with that!! - maybe you should read this (click)

you can find transmac here

the 15 day trial should be enough to get it done

copy the music to your windows machine and sync it with your mini